When you read the words of Roger Sherman read them in context with what is going on now, and its relation to what was going on both when Sherman wrote it, as well as in light of what occurred between the time the article was written and the time which Sherman wrote the remedy into Law, ordained and established by "We the People of the United States," in "this Constitution for the United States of America."

How much of what Sherman wrote is applicable right now?

As I read Sherman's words I keep thinking that his arguments are not allowed to be spoken or heard in the BAR monopoly fascist kangaroo courts, when any issue involving the question of contracts, money, and value is at the core of the issue at hand.

Mr. Sherman's argument is frivolous, and so the "courts have consistently held..."

Sound familiar?

Next time some bottom feeding shyster or usurer tries to fleece you through the BAR collection racket, use Mr. Sherman's treatise as a template to argue the "consideration" element of your "original" "contract" and see if it "works," or if you get barroom justice at the end of a gun barrel west of the Pecos style.

Think about this when you read his words.

mrg




By Roger Sherman

With Introductions (1982, 2001) by Tupper Saussy

Edited by mrg





Original Introduction
(1982) to Roger Sherman's
A Caveat Against Injustice, Or
An Inquiry Into the Evils of a Fluctuating Medium of Exchange

By Tupper Saussy



Any student of the economic system of the United States ought to be familiar with United States monetary law.

Since all laws in this country must flow in pursuance of the United States Constitution, the student should base his study of monetary law on the economic provisions contained in the Constitution.



It's not widely known that the Constitution deals with economics.

Indeed, most people are surprised to learn that the sole purpose of the Constitutional Convention, as described by Alexander Hamilton in a report to Congress in 1786 recommending that there be a convention, was to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States.



What was wrong with trade and commerce in the United States?

They were being twisted all out of shape by an inflating balloon of an elastic currency, the very stuff the Federal Reserve provides today.



Our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation (1781), was severely deficient in the economic rights department.

The Articles empowered Congress to emit a paper currency, while allowing the states to retain their power to make this paper a legal tender in payment of debts, that is, to compel people to use the stuff.

The result?

A warping of personal and business relations in the United States that drove George Washington (and God knows how many other folks) to depression and nervous exhaustion.

Suffering the compounded agonies inflicted by a paper monetary system of uncontrollable value fluctuations.

Washington wrote these dismal words to James Madison on the eve of the Convention:

The deliberate purpose of the 1787 Constitutional Convention was to stop the ravages of a fluctuating medium of exchange by obligating government to maintain a reliable medium of exchange.

President Andrew Jackson validated this fact in his Eighth Annual Message to Congress, December 5th, 1836, just 47 years after the Constitution was ratified by the states.



The "permanent rule excluding the use of the pernicious expedient of paper currency" is an exquisitely framed piece of legislative machinery.

In article I Section 8, the Framers gave Congress the power


In Article I Section 10, the Framers denied the states any power to coin and issue money.

More importantly, they denied the states the power to ordain-in payment of debts-the use of anything but the money Congress was empowered to coin.

The substance of that coin is named in the denial:


Through the Framers, then, the People of the United States appointed the states to be custodians of the American monetary system.

If Congress ceased coining gold and silver, causing gold and silver coin to stop circulating, the states would be unable to compel their citizens to pay any debts, public or private.

It was the responsibility of an ever-vigilant union of states to keep Congress coining gold and silver, thereby preserving interstate commerce, preserving the very Union itself.



The power the states had reserved under the Articles of Confederation, the power to make anything a legal tender, is a marvelous power indeed.

The power to compel people to accept something of no intrinsic value in exchange for something of value is the power to rob people of their property "secretly," as John Maynard Keynes put in the 1920's, "and unobserved."



The United States Constitution is one of the few written compacts between people and government that actually dragged the power out into the open for all to see and condemn.

In the 44th Federalist Paper, James Madison eloquently explained why the States were giving up their power to compel citizens to use either federal or state paper money:


The states' voluntary sacrifice hastily rescued our forefathers from the vale of confusion and darkness, unclogged the wheels of government, brightened the day, and restored peace and order.

A mere nine months after the "permanent rule excluding the pernicious expedient of paper currency" was ratified by the states, the December 16th 1789 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette was able to say:



And in June, 1790, a little more than a year after ratification, a much happier George Washington was able to write his friend the Marquis de LaFayette that

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